Playing to your Personality

This post is going to come as common sense for most, but I think it needs to be said. I almost failed to play Duelyst this entire month. With other things going on, it just wasn’t cutting it for me. I even remember wondering why I was having so much trouble playing because I like the game. But for some reason, nothing was working. I’d load up a game, feel all flustered and frustrated, and then close it. Feeling completely paralyzed by my desire to play and not want to play at the same time.
And then it hit me, I simply don’t like bond Argeon – or possibly not Argeon at all. As I’ve mentioned before, I actually was a Reva main. I chose Lyonar for the purpose of the blog because it’s the first faction everyone tries and my blog is for those just starting out and those who want to grow with me along my duelyst journey.

I know this post is far from my usual instructional posts or my usual “discovery” posts, but in a way – it is a discovery. I have a natural inclination to certain playstyles that transfer across all games. I like spells. In RPGs? I play the wizard/sorceress. I HATE warrior types. I was playing a faction that didn’t fit my usual game personality.

What I did to counter that, was try to make a spellyonar deck with the cards I have. I don’t have enough, so it didn’t work out, but it won some games and it was a lot more fun. My natural affinity for spells/stealth (can anyone say songhai?) in video games was finally starting to show itself.
I was having fun again. The deck can and could have worked had I had the right cards, but it didn’t work as well as I wanted.

So, I made the switch the Healyonar, as I have a lot of those cards (missing the rotbb ones which are hugely important) and I’m having much more fun again, and I’m winning games – moreso than my janky spellgeon. It’s not totally my natural way I like to play games, but it’s much more up my alley than the brute force strength orcs from skyrim style of playing games.
Playing to win is great, but playing to have fun while winning is even better. Ask yourself why you’re playing. For most people it’s to have fun, and for most people winning is fun but not as fun a winning playing how you want. Relying on the meta seems to convince people that they need to play the decks at the very top to have any semblance of a chance of winning. This is far from the case, especially below S rank. It’s also self-fulfilling. The more people are enticed to play Tier S decks to win, the less the chance that other decks that can be piloted decently well even if they aren’t super high on the tier list for the meta.

In short, everyone has a playstyle. Some people like combat, some people like ranged, some people like spells. For me personally, this translates to nearly every game I play. Elderscrolls? The Magic Guild is the first place I hit up before even completing one side quest. Just because duelyst is a competitive board game, don’t forget your natural style of gaming – or you’re not going to have a good time, winning or not.

After writing this, it seems pretty obvious that everyone should know it. However, I think it’s something that doesn’t hurt to have people reminded of. Have fun. Play to your style. It’s what makes competitive games unique and multi-faceted instead of a boring grind fest against the same style of play every game.

Again, a great place to find your style and get good advice from great players is to join our discord!